If you want to temporarily or permanently stop managing the settings for a certain application, you can either delete, retire, or deactivate its Flex configuration file.

The difference between retiring and deleting a Flex configuration file is in the profile archives and profile archive backups of that file.

  • By retiring a Flex configuration file, you delete the corresponding profile archive and profile archive backups when a user logs out, but you do not delete the Flex configuration file.
  • By deleting a Flex configuration file, you delete the file only. The corresponding profile archive and profile archive backups remain unchanged.

To delete a Flex configuration file completely, you must retire the file, wait for the users to log in and log out, and delete the Flex configuration file.

If you want to temporarily prevent FlexEngine from processing a certain Flex configuration file, you can deactivate it. When FlexEngine encounters a deactivated configuration file, it logs a message stating that the deactivated file is skipped, without performing an import or export.